


Ballet and Romance Novels

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, MCU with a dash of comic canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 12:49:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2693597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two of Natasha's favourite things</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ballet and Romance Novels

**Author's Note:**

> written for the prompt: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Natasha Romanoff, ballet and romance novels

In another life she could have been a dancer; not famous, perhaps, but content in her art which she would one day pass on to the children of others (even in her dreams she cannot imagine having her own children). Yes she would be old now, or dead even - a thought that has never perturbed her, old and happy with the way her life had been. There was something to be said for that.   
  
These thoughts are not allowed to enter her mind often, she deliberately keeps them out even as she dances – always ballet, anywhere and any time she can.   
  
To most people she lies, claims it as part of her physical conditioning (which it had been, back then, when she was first taught).   
  
A few are eventually privileged with the truth. One day Clint asks and they are friends now so she answers “Because it's mine.” and he understands because there have been so few thing in life that were his alone.   
  
She could have explained more, if he had needed it, told him how it had started as part of her training and she'd never shown how she enjoyed it ( _loved_ it, if she was completely honest with herself) because even then she' knew they would take it away if they realised.   
  
She would never have mentioned _him_ , not even to Clint, James is hers and she is his. Perhaps her makers knew and that is why they were separated, she pretends not to know this. He is gone but still hers and hers alone, even if they knew some of it they did not know all.   
  
The novels are another thing she never explains, even though she keeps them now she belongs to SHIELD (or to herself, it is harder to think of it that way). People are surprised, they make jokes, she ignores them all unless forced to comment in which instance she simply says it's because she doesn’t have to think when she reads them.

  
Nobody knows everything about her, not the men who made her, not SHIELD (or Hydra, when the revelation comes), and there's no one she trusts enough to admit that she reads romance novels to imagine a happy ending for herself and the man she has loved for so long.   
  
She knows it isn't possible, would never have been possible, but when she reads the books she can lose herself in the story and pretend for just a little while that this could have been her life. 


End file.
